The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

away, suddenly terrified that she will sense the hammering of his heart.
    ‘I came in to apologise,’ she says. ‘We have been such miserable company for you, and you know, I had hoped it would be different, the next time we saw you.’
    Her face is quite serious, but there is a faint pinkness in her cheek. Donald is hit by the utterly amazing conviction that this beautiful girl likes him, and this awareness washes over him like the aftershock of strong brandy. He hopes he isn’t grinning like an idiot.
    ‘You have nothing to apologise for, Miss Knox.’
    ‘Please, call me Susannah.’
    ‘Susannah.’
    It is the first time he has said her name to her face, and it makes him smile. The feel of her name in his mouth, and the sight of her face looking up at him, sears onto his heart like a fiery brand.
    ‘You have been the most charming company, and awelcome diversion from all this … business. I am … glad I came–I mean glad that Mackinley chose me.’
    ‘But I suppose you will go tomorrow, and then we will not see you again.’
    ‘Well … I expect the Company will need to keep an eye on things here, so … Who knows, I may be back sooner than you think.’
    ‘Oh. I see.’
    She looks so forlorn that he is emboldened to add, ‘But, you know, what would be wonderful … is if you would write to me, and, and … let me know how things are here.’
    ‘You mean, like a report?’
    ‘Well … yes, although, I would also like to know … how things are with you. I would like to write to you, if that would be agreeable.’
    ‘You would like to write to me?’ She sounds charmingly surprised.
    ‘I would like that very much.’
    There is a moment when they are breathless in the knowledge of what they are saying, and then Susannah smiles in response.
    ‘I would like that too.’
    Donald is insanely elated, full of a power and energy he had forgotten existed. He gives thanks, urgently and silently, as, hardly knowing what he does, he rushes out of the house, finding paradoxically that he wants to be alone to celebrate his new-found happiness fully. He walks to Scott’s store, assuming that whatever goes on in Caulfield, John Scott will know about it. He bursts in through the door, trying to keep the foolish grin from his face–a man has died, after all–to see a slender, round-faced woman behind the counter. She looks up at the sound of the door and her first expression is one of fear, quickly masked by a blank neutrality.
    John Scott is not there, but Mrs Scott proves nearly ashelpful. Donald notices her distracted air, and tries to concentrate as she tells him that Mr Sturrock is staying in their house, and may be there now, she can’t say.
    ‘You’re welcome to call and see. The maid is there …’ Mrs Scott breaks off, as if she has just remembered something. ‘No, I will send a message, that would be better.’
    She disappears through a door at the back. Donald stares out of the window at a sky that looks like curds and remembers Susannah’s soft mouth.
    Thomas Sturrock has a way about him that Donald warms to–when told the man was a Searcher, he assumed he would be an old woodsman with coarse manners and the sort of tangy humour he has to endure at the Fort, and he is pleasantly surprised at the refined gentleman he encounters instead.
    ‘I wonder if I could ask, how did you end up in such a line of work?’
    They are drinking Scott’s bitter coffee, in two chairs that Mrs Scott has placed by the stove. Sturrock stares into his cup with disappointment before replying.
    ‘I’ve done a few things in my time, and I’d written about the Indian way of life. I’ve always been a friend to the Indian, and someone knew this and asked me to help in a case where a boy had been taken. And that worked out, so other people asked me. I never set out to do it, it just came my way. Too old for it now.’
    ‘And the item you have come to look for, do you have any written proof that Jammet wanted you to have